Perspectives
by ofcatsandwomen
Summary: A story consisting of five stand-alone chapters, each dealing with one of the human senses. Drama, first-person. Characters: Matt Murdock, some Foggy and a dash of Jack.
1. The Beach

**The beach**

I know why dogs bark at vacuum cleaners and cats run away in horror at the mere sight of them. They're noisy as hell. Sure, most people would probably agree that they're loud, but they have no idea how bad it really is. They can't hear what I hear. On top of the typical roar, which is bad enough in itself, is this high-frequency shrill that threatens to split my head in half every time I hear it. The new cleaners in the office just got a new one that's the worst yet. I've been thinking of asking them to switch to a quieter model, but I'm not quite sure how I'd explain it. The only good news is that the higher the frequency, the louder it has to be to pass through walls. So, as long as they're not cleaning our floor, I can usually keep it out. The low rumble of the street outside is a different story altogether. Low-frequency sounds travel far without losing much intensity. Fortunately, they're not nearly as unpleasant.

Of all my heightened senses, none is quite the double-edged sword my sense of hearing is. I work hard at keeping most of the noise out, but there almost always seems to be just a little too much coming through. I always seem to be hearing more than I need to. There's just too much noise of people on the sidewalk rushing past me, cars roaring along down the street, jack-hammers pounding cement, dogs barking, children screaming, and stereos playing at volumes that threaten to make a whole generation deaf by the time they hit sixty-five.

I know I shouldn't complain too much, because for all the energy it takes to keep the cacophony of daily life at bay, there's no denying the usefulness of the world of sound. In a world without color or detail, sounds can tell you a lot. For example, have you ever noticed how most people let out just a little bit of air every time they smile? That's one of my favorite sounds. Another one is the sound of the ocean when the waves break against a cliff or a sandy beach. When you can never experience perfect silence, the second best thing is Mother Nature's perfect white noise.

I grew up in the city, so it wasn't until I started college that I ever got to go to the beach. With Manhattan being an actual island, getting near the water was never a problem, but it's not quite the same as experiencing the ocean without all the background noise of eight million people going about their business. In college, I met Foggy, which was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Not only has he been my best friend ever since then and forgiven me my years of deception, he also had access to his parents' house in the Hampton's. Unlike me, Foggy comes from money. His family isn't extremely wealthy, and their summer house is certainly no palace, but it's right on the beach, which quickly became a favorite place of mine.

The first time we went was during our first year of college. It was early in the season and the beaches were practically deserted. It was still chilly in the evenings, but we decided to go anyway, and both of us felt like great adventurers as we screamed along to the songs on the radio for the drive out of the city. It hurt my ears a little, but it was a lot of fun. As soon as we got there, we unloaded our things at the house and stuffed a picnic basket with some Coke, hotdogs and all the necessary ingredients for making s'mores. Needless to say, Foggy was shocked to learn that I had never had s'mores before and saw it as his personal mission to remedy this sad state of affairs. But it wasn't just the s'mores. I'd never sat at a real camp fire before either. I was a city kid who had never been in the Boy Scouts and had never gone to camp, so it wasn't surprising when you think about it. I didn't even know what I was missing.

My hand was on his arm as he guided me past every obstacle on our way down to the water. There was really no need for that, but he didn't know it at the time and I had no way of really telling him – or anyone else – about how it is that I can sense the location of objects around me even though I can't see. The further away we got from the buildings behind us, the more it felt like walking into a void. With almost nothing around me to reflect back whatever energy my mind creates, the sound of the ocean and the faint impression of the house some four hundred feet away were the only discernible landmarks. I should have been uneasy, but I wasn't. There was something oddly peaceful about the whole thing.

Foggy went looking for driftwood to fuel the fire we were making while I got the blanket out, along with all the food for our two-person beach party. Before long, he returned with enough wood to keep a fire burning for hours and it didn't take him more than a couple of minutes to get one going. Actually, that's another sound I like: the crackling of fire wood as it burns, the way it hisses and breaks as the fire consumes it. Years later, after I donned my costume and quite arrogantly designated myself as the protector of Hell's Kitchen, I would come to know other kinds of fires. The kind that can tear down a whole city block. Fire has never been my element; it has no solid form and only registers as heat to me, so I stay away if I can. Controlled fire, on the other hand, is something else entirely. It's warm and comforting; and it sounds great.

When we finally got our food cooking, Foggy had a great time pointing out to me that I was holding my hot dog too close to the flame. I jokingly reminded him of the fact that I couldn't actually see it, but he wouldn't give me a break. I always liked that about him. I know how nervous he was around me the first couple of days we roomed together, even though I've never brought it up since, but once he got over the initial shock of being stuck with a blind guy it was never a big deal for him. As far as the hot dog went, I'm lucky enough to be equipped with a killer nose, so I didn't burn it too badly. While we ate we talked about all the random things we usually talked about, everything from our favorite classes to the infinity of space. And, we shared our insecurities. His usually centered around his bad luck with the opposite sex. Mine varied, but at the time I think I had started worrying about whether anyone would actually hire me when I got out of school. I think that night may have been the first time he suggested that we go into practice together. We were just freshmen, but we both new that we wanted to be lawyers.

By the time we got the s'mores going, the sun had begun to set. I knew because I could feel it taking the heat with it as it started to dip below the horizon. I also knew because Foggy told me. I guess it must have been a great sunset because I could have sworn he was feeling just a little bad for me right then. Maybe I would have felt bad too if it weren't for the fact that it was one of those times when my other senses paid me back in full for what I'd lost. After I'd finished my first s'more, which I found to be a nice, but slightly overrated treat, I asked Foggy if there were any obstacles between the water and where we were sitting. I already knew there weren't, and when he answered I walked down to the water, leaving my cane behind. The waves spilled over my feet with the kind of chill that makes the bones ache, but I loved every moment of it. The roar of the ocean that night was the kind of sound that I could let myself take in fully, without fear of losing control. As I stood there I wondered if maybe, if I listened carefully enough, I could hear the whales calling to each other out at sea. I'm pretty sure I heard something. Then again, maybe it was just my imagination.

Foggy and I ate a couple of more s'mores and talked about the upcoming election. Then we talked about the party we were going to the following weekend. I never cared much for parties, but I knew that having a shot at something resembling a college social life was important to him, so I always went anyway. Though I suppose he might understand why being someone others were often afraid to approach wasn't always fun, I doubt he would have understood the more important reason. Being in a packed room with music loud enough to make the walls shake messes with my head. Severely. But I couldn't tell him that, and it didn't matter anyway. He was such a good friend to me, and I wanted to return the favor.

As the chill of the night set in and the stars came out, Foggy quite forcefully grabbed my wrist and pointed out all the different constellations. Though I shouldn't say all since he actually only knew five of them, which I thought was kind of funny. As we lay on our backs on the blanket, I knew Foggy was looking at the sky. I was listening to the rhythmical sounds of a never-ending cycle of waves washing over sand and the crackling of the fire that was slowly dying about a foot from my head. My state of complete bliss must have been apparent because after a little while Foggy asked me what I was smiling about. I just thanked him for bringing me and asked if we could do it again some time.

We ended up going back a couple of times a year after that, all through law school. We changed, our topics changed, and I don't think we ever made s'mores again, but the ocean was always there waiting. I think about it sometimes when the constant roar of the city gets to be too much of a good thing, and when the cleaning crew comes through our office. To any dog out there who can't stop barking at the vacuum cleaner, I feel your pain. Thank God there's always the beach.


	2. Scars

**Scars**

I really should take better care of my hands. I think about that sometimes when I feel the full impact of a jaw colliding with my fist or when my billy club burns against my palm through the glove as the line runs out of slack. Considering how much they mean to me I should pamper them, not cut them up on rows of teeth and brick walls. Where's the respect? After all, I couldn't have gotten that fancy law degree without them.

Sometimes I wonder what our clients must think. When I run my fingers across my knuckles, the fine lines of past battles are clearly felt, but I can only hope it doesn't actually look all that bad. Especially since I can't exactly hide them. When you read by touch, people tend to look at what your doing. It's just plain curiosity, and I can understand people's fascination. But every time I feel someone's eyes on me as my fingers quickly scan a legal document or the page of a book, I can't help wondering if the scars make them think I'm really Daredevil or whether they're just questioning my ability to chop my own vegetables. And really, I shouldn't even get started on the black eyes and the cut lips…

I've been using my hands to read for most of my life, and at this point I don't even know if I'd know what I was looking at if I were to somehow be given my sight back tomorrow. To me, the written word isn't something that jumps out at you across space, although that would undoubtedly be more convenient. It's something to be picked up from a page, one piece at a time. While Braille pours out, print usually has to be dragged out and wrestled with a little before it gives up its secrets. I learned early on, as I taught myself this very special trick, that the secret didn't lie in the individual letters, but in the words. A word is a unit, the sum of its parts. It has a shape of valleys and peaks, swirls and lines that make a whole. The secret lay in finding the pattern and cracking the code, opening up more words hidden in a thin layer of ink, almost too faint to be deciphered. _Almost_.

My sense of touch is the only one of my senses that has never lied to me, never mislead me. There was a time when I depended on it almost entirely. I spent about ten days in the hospital following my accident. That was apparently enough time to ascertain five times over, through a series of different tests, what was already known on the first day. I had been rendered totally blind for life. Though I didn't tell anyone, I knew right away that my body had undergone other changes as well. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was a curse or a blessing, but I gradually got used to the hospital environment and after a few days, I had deluded myself into thinking that I would be okay. My dad needed me to be okay, and I needed to believe that I would somehow be able to play this strange hand that fate had dealt me.

But whatever optimism I had managed to muster was shattered the moment we walked out the door of the second rate county hospital. The chaos that had plagued my first few days in the noisy and smelly darkness my life had become, started all over again. I clung to my dad like a little kid, scared out of my mind. I could hear his heart beating, and feel the tension in his body as he had to pry my hands off his arm to put my bag of clothes in the trunk of the cab, while I was left fully exposed to the nightmarish intensity of my own perceptions, made all the more frightening by the inescapable fact that I couldn't see anything. Every sound and smell was disembodied, disconnected from its source of origin, and I had no way of making any sense of my environment. As my dad came back around and grabbed me, I felt an enormous rush of relief. Not only did he represent everything that was safe and constant, he gave me something to hold onto. As long as I could touch him, he was real. At the same time, that relief filled me with a sense of shame. I knew I had no real reason to be embarrassed – no one expected me to walk away from everything that had happened as if there was nothing to it – but I hated the feeling of vulnerability and nearly complete dependency. I had somehow managed to fool myself into thinking that once I got out of the hospital, things would miraculously go back to normal. I realized right then and there that my old life was gone forever.

The next day, my dad took me to the rehab facility in town where I would spend a sizeable portion of my waking hours for the next few months. It was late March, but I wouldn't go back to school until the fall. Meanwhile, my time would be spent devoted to the arduous task of learning how to do everything I had always taken for granted. Amazing as it might sound to anyone who's ever seen me jump off a building, I basically flunked my first two months of O&M training. Okay, so they don't actually flunk you, but let's say that everyone was very concerned. I was still young enough that no one saw it fit to discuss anything with me directly, but overhearing a whole team of specialists talking to my father through a couple of cement walls was easy enough. Apparently, I had something of a listening problem. I knew it too, of course. I just had no way of explaining how hard it was to listen to something when you hear almost everything. How are you supposed to be able to concentrate on the flow of traffic when a car door being slammed shut a block away sounds like it's right next to your ear. I was jumping out of my skin and my concentration was constantly diverted from where it needed to be. My ears couldn't be trusted, and my nose was equally unreliable. Almost twenty years later, I can't imagine what I'd do without my heightened senses, but back then they were a liability. Before I learned to use them to my advantage, and before meeting the man who would teach me to reach out with my mind to perceive the world around me from a distance, all I had to rely on was touch. Anything that could be felt, whether directly or with the tip of my cane, was real – its existence and location proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Everything else was just noise.

I still have that need to touch things sometimes, simply because I feel compelled to. Sure, even with my other senses, I rely on touch much more than I would if I could see, but I have certain habits that shouldn't be necessary. For instance, I'll sometimes brush my hand against the doorframe when I enter a room, even though I _know_ it's there. It's a psychological thing, I suppose. Foggy asked me about that one time, not long after he found out the truth about me. There were certain quirks he assumed were simply part of the "act," habits I still refused to give up even when I didn't have to pretend to be ordinary. I can sense where things are around me, so why would I need that amount of tactile reassurance? I can't really know for sure, but I guess part of it is just getting all the extra details. The other part is the simple fact that perceiving the world the way I do isn't actually like seeing. Now, don't get me wrong – it _works_. It works amazingly well, all things considered, and I know that it gives me specific abilities that other people don't have, but radar sense alone is less complete. I can go into a room and register that there's a couch in the middle of it, but it's not until I touch it that I know what kind of fabric it is or whether it's badly worn or barely used. Perhaps it boils down to something as simple as intimacy, or just the emotional gratification of feeling the world, and being completely connected to it. That's probably why I never minded using the cane much, even though I very rarely actually need it. You can pick up all kinds of stuff with that thing, like the precise texture of the pavement or the length of the grass in Central Park. And there is something so real about jamming it into a lamp post and just feeling the metal shoot straight up your arm. Even though I _know_ it's there.

I have the exact contours of every woman I've ever loved hardwired into my brain. Every single little detail. When I think about Karen, I can almost feel her cheek burning against my palm. She had really soft downy hair right below her temples. She told me once that she was embarrassed about it, but I'm sure it was barely visible, and I liked it. I read one time that red hair is the coarsest, followed by brown and then blonde. Karen's was really soft, like silk almost. Natasha's is more like the mane of a horse. Probably doesn't sound very appealing, but I think it's just right for her. She is like a race horse when you think about it; a thoroughbred, with muscles that flex under her skin as she moves. Elektra… I don't really know what to say about her. Let's just say that my memories of her are best described as bittersweet, more or less tainted by everything that happened later. She had the most amazing lips though. I used to love to just run my thumb along them, waiting for her to bite it, which she always did. Then we'd move on to kissing instead.

When you're with someone you love, you want to know everything about them, and get as close as you possibly can. So, I must admit that I always did miss the eye contact. It's not exactly something I dwell on, but there were always moments with all of them where I would have given an arm and a leg to just be able to look them in the eye. Just once. But I never could, so everything else had to be enough. The way they smelled, sounded, and moved. The shape of their features and the feel of their skin. Touching someone can be so intimate. It's not something you even want experience with just anyone. For the most part, I honestly don't care what people look like, and I have absolutely no desire to get my hands anywhere near the face of someone I don't know. It's just weird and strikes me as completely forced. And yeah, it's a total cliché too. I never even took a closer look at Foggy until after I had known him for two years, and then it was only because we were both drunk and he wanted to show me the scar he got on his forehead when he fell off his tricycle as a kid. I always smile when I think about that. Well, the tricycle incident, I mean. As much as I love the guy, I can't help feeling that only someone like him could get his pant leg stuck in the wheel and fly head first into his mother's antique dollhouse.

Of course, I've seen some things with my hands I'd rather forget. When my father was killed, Foggy was by my side at the morgue. I needed him there. He was my best friend, the only family I had, and my pain was easier to bear knowing that I wouldn't carry it alone. What insulted me was that the men in their starched coats with their tidy documents needed him too, as they waited for a signature – not from me – but from him. As if I actually needed eyes to see that the lifeless body in front of me had once housed the soul of Jack Murdock. I wouldn't even have needed heightened senses. Touch would have been enough. My hand traced the indentation above his left ear that was the main source of the stench of blood that oozed from his body. The blood was his, as were the locks of hair that were plastered to his skull, thick and heavy, and the coarse stubble that had continued to grow on his face even after the last breath had left his body. How could I not have known it was him?

When it was all over and the men in the coats had had their documents signed by the guy who could see, Foggy took me to the bathroom to wash my hands off. He lead me right up to the sink, which was probably a good thing. I think my senses were on hiatus that night. I'm not even sure I was actually in my own body. Nothing felt real. I hesitated for just a few moments before I put my hands under the running water, fearing that the memories would somehow wash away with the blood. Then I realized that the blood wasn't his life, only his death and I suddenly couldn't wait to wash it off. Foggy handed me a couple of those paper towels that feel like sandpaper and put his arm around my shoulders. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. It was enough to just feel the heat of him through my coat, as a reminder that there was still life out there. That there were people in the world who weren't dead, and that at least one of those people needed me to come back up to the surface. We were going into practice together. Life would go on, and I would bottle up my rage and use it for good. It may not have been what dad would have wanted, but I like to think he would have understood. He was a fighter too – scarred, flawed… relentless.

Sometimes when I'm perched on a roof top high above the street, I'll take my glove off and just let my hand rest on the cold stone underneath. I shouldn't have to. There are enough sounds, smells and echos all around to let me know the whole city is out there, but when I really want to feel connected, I reach out. I touch it. And the city touches me back.


	3. Quiche for Men

**Qu****ic****he for Men**

My dad could not cook. Sure, he had three or four signature dishes – if that's even the right term – that could pass for food on a good day. But, let's just say that the only thing that stood between us and a bad case of scurvy was the liberal use of ketchup and a daily glass of OJ. I didn't grow up in the kind of neighboorhood where people went to fancy restaurants or experimented with anything featured on cooking shows. I was raised on macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and anything that you could make with Hamburger Helper. Dad and I were also big consumers of canned goods. As I recall, there was even Spam. I'm not talking about the Viagra ads that periodically land in people's inboxes, but the infamous meat product that many have grown to fear, but few have actually tasted. The difference between me and most of the kids from school, however, was that they at least had mothers that would use Campbell's cream of mushroom soup to make casserole, while I just got the soup. Every once in a while, my dad would spice things up with a home-made burger or a T-bone steak. Where many prefer mustard with their meat, my dad's condiment of choice was ketchup. He would use it on anything. Take some spaghetti and put ketchup on it, and you get something that would actually be called a meal in my house. Suffice it to say that I was a scrawny kid, possibly even slightly malnourished. It didn't bother me though, I didn't know any better, and I know dad did his best to keep me fed.

Sometimes on the weekends, about once a month, we would go out for breakfast to the Denny's restaurant down the block. I used to love it. Going there for dessert after we'd been to the movies was an even bigger treat. The whole place had sort of a fifties vibe to it, and the waitresses all managed to put on big smiles even though they were probably just about to go off a twelve-hour shift at minimum wage. Everything in that place seemed larger than life. The portions were enormous, and the brightly colored fake leather seats were big enough to house even the more rotund members of our ever-expanding population. The pictures on the dessert menu where absolutely mouth-watering and I could never quite decide between a slice of apple pie, proudly on display behind the glass counter, or one of the many frozen treats featured on the menu.

I really wish I could still go into a Denny's, chow down an All-American Slam for breakfast, and get the same amount of enjoyment out of it that I did when I was younger. But my tastes have changed. I became something of a food snob after the accident. It's not necessarily a matter of flavors being more intense to me than to anyone else, but I can always pick up on the fouler tastes that spices normally hide, and there are a lot of additives I just can't stand. Needless to say, Denny's was out of the question, and dad's food went from barely edible to something I had to force myself to chew and swallow. I probably lost about five or six pounds that first summer. Dad was really worried, but I think he just figured that I was traumatized. I _was_, but that wasn't the reason I wasn't eating. Desperate, he decided to try out some new places for us to go, and we finally found this diner a few blocks away that actually served good quality breakfast. It still wasn't fine cuisine, but all of it was home-made from scratch.

We even found a new place for our movie and dessert outings. We had to start going earlier, to the less crowded shows with fewer people to be annoyed by the fact that we had to talk through the whole thing, so we always showed up for dessert around dinner time. The most popular item at this particular eatery was the brownie á la mode. It was made with home-made vanilla ice cream, and that's what I had. Every single time. Because of the considerable demand, the brownies were never more than a couple of hours old, and the whole place smelled like chocolate. It was absolute heaven, intense pleasure during a time when little else gave me that kind of emotional satisfaction. My dad was just happy to see me eating and almost being back to my old self. By August, we were up to two or three visits a week, with or without the movie. Fortunately, dad was an unexpectedly responsible parent when it came to getting me to brush my teeth, so my pearly whites were more or less intact until I picked up the habit of going out at night in a devil costume, many years later.

September was kind of a rough time, since I had to go back to school. On the one hand, I couldn't wait to get back to just doing normal things again, but things were not exactly that simple. The good thing was that the bullying stopped. Apparently, even the most hardened school yard bullies have some kind of ethics code, according to which beating up a blind kid is probably something like ten or twenty times worse than beating up someone with glasses. So, they pretty much left me alone. As did everyone else, for that matter. Everyone talked _about_ me, but hardy anyone actually talked _to_ me. Well, except for all the teachers who now regarded me more as some kind of special project than as a real person. I had always been at the top of my class, and it almost killed me to be treated as if I were stupid or inordinarily fragile. Things eventually turned around – I actually had a great time in high school – but the first few months of junior high were no picnic.

At that time I had reached something of a turning point in other areas, however. I had managed to put my heightened senses to work for me, rather than against me, and become much more independent than I could have imagined just a few short months earlier. My dad had no qualms about letting me take to the streets by myself, even though I suspect it took everything he had not to let it show just how nervous he really was, and I actually enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how the world was supposed to fit together. That was when Stick found me, although I suspect he had probably found me months earlier and just decided to bide his time. He would have known right away that there was something unusual about me, but he also needed to be certain that I had the right amount of fighting spirit. That I had what it took to put up with his grueling regimen. One of the more mundane consequences of my meeting Stick was that I was finally forced to do something about my eating habits. Or rather, my habit of eating very little because I couldn't stand either the food in the school cafeteria or the same old dishes my dad kept putting on the table. Though he never knew it, Stick not only turned me into a phenomenal martial artist, he turned me into an amateur cook of the first order.

I think it was just plain hunger that led me to eventually, one day, ask my dad for some money to go grocery shopping. I'm pretty sure his jaw dropped at that suggestion, but he quickly regained his composure. He just muttered, "Okay," pulled a few bills out of his wallet, folded them according to my preferences and pushed them into my hand. Later that day, I snuck down to the super-market, not exactly knowing what I was going to do once I got there. The place was easy enough to find, however, distinguished by the sounds of squeaky shopping carts and the sliding doors swooshing back and forth as people came and went. Once I got inside, I quickly realized that while I would have no difficulty sniffing out the fresh food and the produce, there were some logistical problems with the whole endeavor. Before I had enough time to be discouraged and go back empty-handed, Brenda – a store clerk with a larger-than-life body and personality – swooped down on me like a benevolent hawk. She would be my go-to liaison for all things grocery-related for the next five years. I liked her instantly. She gave me the grand tour of the place, and I think she was rather intrigued by the idea that a kid barely into his teens took such a precocious interest in putting together a decent meal. We worked out an arrangement where I would bring her lists of whatever basic supplies I needed, which she would get for me, while I devoted my efforts to literally sniffing out the best offerings when it came to meat, fish, fruits and vegetables. Brenda took an interest in me that went beyond just providing a service, and she always took me seriously.

Back in the kitchen, I was left to my own devices. Naturally, we didn't own any cookbooks, and before I learned to read print it wouldn't have mattered anyway. We also didn't have any of the basic gadgets that you would expect to find in a reasonably well-equipped kitchen. Talking cooking thermometer? Forget it. We didn't even have a regular cooking thermometer. Let's just say that my cooking technique was highly experimental. The food was almost always good – dad was beyond impressed – but I was hardly a high-caliber chef.

While cooking was never one of my main hobbies, it is definitely something I enjoy. And, as long as I was still living with my dad, it was a necessity. By the time I was fourteen, I had taken over all the cooking chores in the household, and about a year later my dad managed to get his hands on a used copy of the Braille edition of the Joy of Cooking. That was the very first book of its kind in our home, and I don't think dad was the least bit bothered by the fact that he couldn't read it himself. I wish I still had it, for nostalic reasons if nothing else, but most of my worldly possessions were destroyed by the Kingpin years ago, and I never got around to replacing that particular item. Owning an actual, all-purpose cookbook took my skills to the next level, but I think dad was sometimes a little puzzled by the outcome. When I decided to make a Quiche Lorraine at the age of sixteen, my dad acted as if I had taken the first step toward coming out of the proverbial closet. Little did I know that real men don't eat quiche. To the likes of my father, anything French was highly suspect, and Jack Murdock had never before had an encounter with anything quite like this savory pie-like concoction.

Foggy likes quiche. Heck, he likes anything I cook. I'm pretty sure that within a week of us living together in college, he was already thinking that I was the best roommate on the planet, and I think the simple fact that I knew my way around a kitchen accounted for a sizeable portion of that assessment. If there was a game on TV, I'd make buffalo wings, and if we wanted to impress the ladies, I'd occasionally make a batch of cookies. But I have to admit, a lot of times we'd just rent a movie and order in.

There are times when I wonder if my life as Daredevil has really been worth it. In fact, there are times when I _know_ the price has been too high. That's why it's nice to know that there have been many times when I've been in just the right place at just the right time. A few years ago, I saved Brenda's life. She was held at gun point by a man I knew had it in him to fire at any moment, and I intervened. I gave him a beating that was a little more severe than what I usually prefer, but everything about him enraged me. Brenda was one of those people who would light up someone's day and think nothing of it, while that man would take the life of such a person without blinking. And I say _was_, because I heard Brenda passed away last year. Nothing I could have done about it that time, it was cancer. I did get to thank her though. I wish I could have revealed myself to her that night, but I did the second best thing. The next day, I went down to that market for the first time in years and she recognized me right away. I don't know if there were any physical marks on her from the night before, but she at least gave me the impression that she was doing okay. She sounded a little surprised when I thanked her though, as if she thought that _I_ was the one who had done _her_ a favor by coming around so much when I was younger. With people like her, I guess that's typical. Maybe that's part of the reason why I care about Hell's Kitchen so much. Some of the most extraordinary people can sometimes be found just around the corner. That's true of any neighborhood, I suppose, but this one happens to be mine.

I have a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup, in one of the cupboards in my kitchen. I hardly ever use it, but I always make sure to replace it every time it expires. I guess it just doesn't feel like home without it. Call it a testament to the kid I once was and the father who did everything he could to pull me through. Who knows? One of these days I might even decide to stop by a Denny's.


	4. Sights Unseen

**Sights Unseen**

"Here you go," he said in a voice that was filled with an unusual amount of steel. Foggy is a forgiving guy, but this time it was different. I had blown it big time. I had been a lying and deceiving jerk for years and now I just sat there, waiting for him to hand me the beer he was holding.

"Well, are you going to give it to me?" I asked, knowing that he was just testing me. It had been one month and two days since he found out the truth about me, and just about one week since we had been back working together. Around the office, things had been remarkably okay, all things considered, but nothing was like it was before. There was a huge gulf between us that I wasn't sure we were ever going to be able to close. Now, we were at my place, trying to act all normal and casual about everything, and failing miserably.

"I'm not sure I want to play that game anymore." I knew what he meant. He wanted to put an end to the pretense, that well-rehearsed routine we had had for more than ten years. He was going to make me grab the bottle myself. I could already feel the cold air around it, and with a slight push of my mind, the shape of it was revealed, hovering in mid-air, suspended from the slightly fuzzier shape of Foggy's arm.

"Fair enough," I said as I reached out and grabbed it without hesitation.

"So you care to tell me how you do that?"

"I told you already. I have heightened senses, and I can make out the shape of things." I _had_ told him, though in retrospect I can certainly understand if that was a somewhat meager explanation.

"I just don't get it. All these years… Was _any_ of it real?"

"Foggy, I'm still the same person."

"Are you?" I have to admit, that one hit me like a bowling ball to the stomach. It was a fair enough question though. Maybe that's why it hurt so much.

"Yes, I am. I swear to you." That sounded a little too desperate, like I was begging for some level of understanding I wasn't entitled to.

"Let's see here… You lead a secret life as a costumed superhero for years without telling me, then fake your own death with no regard for how it affects everyone around you. You're not even really blind!"

"Foggy, I'm sorry. Okay?" This probably wasn't the right time to bring up the fact that he never told me his mother wasn't really his mother, so I decided not to. It wasn't anywhere near being on the same level of deceit. "Have I lost you?"

"Maybe." That was actually more than I had hoped for. 'Maybe' was good, I could work with that.

"That's why I never told you. I was afraid of what might happen, and… The more time went by, the harder it got. And as far as my abilities are concerned, I never even told my own father."

"You said that already, and if that's supposed to make me feel better, it's not working. I mean, why _didn't_ you tell him?"

"I don't know. I think I would have, eventually… In the end, I don't think... Look, he died knowing I could take care of myself, that was all that mattered to him." Foggy was standing with his back toward me, by the kitchen sink, as if he couldn't stand to look at me.

"So you do your little charade, day in and day out… I must say it's quite impressive." At this point, he had turned around to look at me, forcing me to raise my head in an imitation of looking back at him. It was so uncharacteristic of Foggy to be angry at anyone, and I'd never heard that amount of sarcasm in his voice before. I almost wanted to crawl out of my skin.

"It's not like that." I could feel the heat rising in my face, feeling a strange mix of shame and something close to defiance. "I really _am_ blind, you know that. I'm just…," this was going to be hard to explain, "not as blind as I appear to be."

"I'm not even sure what that _means_. That's like saying you're a little pregnant or something!" I couldn't help smiling a little bit at that comment. I could see where he was coming from, but the comparison wasn't entirely valid.

"It's not, actually, but point taken." I took a sip of my beer and put it back down on the counter. I was in for a long explanation of how it is I do the things I do, and what it means to see some things and not others. I'd had similar conversations with Elektra, Karen, Natasha, Ben… even Heather. I don't think I ever told the story the exact same way, because none of it is easy to explain. It's like trying to describe to someone from another planet what grass smells like…

ooooo

So, what do I see? Good question. Depending on how you look at it, the answer could either be "quite a bit," "very little," or "nothing." In the strict, medical sense the simple answer is that I have no vision at all, which – to be blunt – makes me significantly more blind than most. Though I suppose the definition itself is fairly arbitrary. Either way, my eyes are a complete mess. I have corneal scars and cataracts, my retinas detached completely within a couple of days of the radiation exposure, and there was some pretty substantial nerve damage as well. All pretty much the equivalent of smashing up a camera and then removing the film, just for good measure. I have no idea what my eyes actually look like, but since I have my ways of knowing when I'm being lied to, I've been able to get an idea. People who have said that they look perfectly normal are all _clearly_ lying. Most of the ones who've said that they don't look "all that bad" are not. So, I guess that pretty much sums it up. It's not grounds for any kind of complex, though I was significantly more self-conscious about it when I was younger.

For most people, there are some obvious limitations, or let's just call them "obstacles," that come with being totally blind. Most of these limitations are ones that I don't have. That's not to say that I'm not familiar with them, given the fact that it took months of rigorous training to be able to use my radar sense effectively (and that's not even counting the months that passed before I even met Stick), but for the most part I've essentially forgotten what it's like to not be able to easily perceive those parts of your environment you're not physically touching.

I know how to use a white cane. I _don't_ know what it's like to actually have to rely on it every time you step outside. I'd be lying if I said I did. And, yes, I suppose I've done my fair share of lying. In order to keep my senses secret, I've had to exaggerate the extent and implications of my disability. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's always been a necessity. If only for the reason that all of my "enhancements" don't actually fully compensate for the simple fact that I see about as much out of my forehead as I do out of my eyes. I sometimes like to think they do, and as far as my extra-curricular activities go, they more than deliver. But if I were to say that being blind isn't an inconvenience, or that I didn't ever so occasionally feel a pang of regret that I can't see certain things, that would be a lie as well. Although, I should add that in the larger scope of things, the loss of my sight was nothing compared to all the people I've lost in my life. I'd give anything to have my dad back, to have Karen back. I really can't say the same for my vision. Not by a long shot.

When I do that thing I do, when I go out, there are no limitations. As much pain as that life has caused me, I know that I need it almost as much as I need air and food. This need I have for setting things right – no matter how futile that might seem in the long run – is a big part of why I do it. The other part is the sense of power it gives me, knowing that I'm in my element, almost unbeatable. When I'm Daredevil, my blindness is irrelevant. It's of no consequence whatsoever. The rest of my life isn't always like that. I can't see. Most of the time, that doesn't matter. Sometimes it does. After the accident, I had to get used to the idea of there always being something about me that had to be addressed, related to, and considered. To this day, people look at me, talk about me (obviously unaware of the fact that I can hear them quite well), and sometimes treat me like I just came in on a space ship. You do get used to it, but cultivating a sense of humor about it really helps. I learned early on that there were two kinds of "special." The bad kind, as in "special needs," and the good kind of special; the way I felt with dad, Stick… even Foggy.

For the first couple of days after we met, Foggy was really freaked out by the idea of rooming with someone who was – picking a ridiculous label at random – "differently abled." I don't think he'd deny it if I ever brought it up, but I really see no reason to. I'm sure I wouldn't have acted differently if the roles were reversed. He was worried about saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, and even inadvertently killing me by forgetting to close a drawer or leaving something out of place. After we got used to each other, he was great. I was one hundred percent comfortable around him. He didn't care that I was blind, and he never made a big deal about it. Come to think of it, that might actually be one of the reasons I never really felt a need to tell him about my powers. With Elektra, and even Karen, I felt like I had to impress them, that I wouldn't be good enough without my abilities. Foggy was impressed with me anyway. And no, not like those people who are impressed by the fact that blind people can dress themselves, but genuinely impressed with who I was as a person. Way to remind myself of just how much I don't deserve his friendship…

But, I know that what makes me really special, one of a kind, isn't so much who I am or what I appear to be, but what I can do – because of that childhood accident, and in spite of it. I don't know why I have my powers, all I know is that I still wouldn't know how to use them to their full potential if it weren't for Stick. Here was this mysterious, and not altogether pleasant man who found me and promised me the world back. It was mine for the taking, all I had to do was to reach out and touch it. I had been given a new sense, one I wasn't even aware of, and he would show me how to use it to do some amazing things.

The very first lesson Stick taught me was about space. He took me to an empty garage a couple of blocks from my apartment and asked me to describe its dimensions to him. This wasn't particularly hard, since I could tell fairly well from the echoes where the walls were, a trick I still use for very large open spaces. But I wasn't allowed to listen for the echoes. Stick wanted me to _feel_ the walls, and for several minutes we just stood there quietly. I had no idea what I was doing, and the suspicion that I was dealing with a madman started weighing heavy on my mind. Next, he took me to a smaller storage space nearby. We did the same thing again. This time, he wanted me to feel the difference between the two locations. We kept this up for two weeks, going from one place to the next, and I was almost ready to give up when I gradually started noticing a difference. There was a kind of… I'm not sure how to describe it really, but I suppose "pressure" comes close enough. The smaller the space, the tighter the room felt around me, as if I could sense something outside my own body. After that, I had complete faith in Stick; even though there would be many times when I made very little progress.

Lesson number two was about movement, learning to sense things coming toward me, and not just by the sound they made or the displacement of air. I had to learn to feel things happening around me as if my external environment were an extension of my physical body. This was a particularly grueling step, as Stick would throw things at me for me to catch. Needless to say, I took quite a few hits to the head and my dad asked a lot of questions about the cuts on my face and the black eyes. My explanation? Occupational hazard. Based on what I've told people over the years, I've walked into enough half-open doors to give blind people everywhere a bad rap. Interestingly, I don't think anyone has actually seen me do it. It's funny how that works…

Moving objects feel like vibrations to me, the frequency and intensity varying depending on whether they're big or small, dense or loose. The most interesting thing about this sensation is that I experience it happening in its actual location. If there is sudden movement ten feet away to my left, I feel it out there, as if I had long invisible whiskers or strings connecting me to actual locations in space. This creates a constant awareness of movement all around me. And, it saves me the time of having to look. Not that I could if I wanted to.

My ability to actually determine the shape of things took the longest to learn, which probably isn't surprising. By all accounts, it should be impossible. Shapes are a disturbance in space, and so my ability to experience them built on the abilities I'd already acquired. I'll never forget the day, after about two months of what seemed like a hopeless run of trial and error, that I was able to see again. Well, figuratively speaking. When I was a kid, my dad once took me to see one of those 3D movies that you use special glasses for, the ones that have a green and a red filter. What happened to me that day was something similar to that kind of experience. I focused my mind in a very particular way, and suddenly everything jumped out at me. It frightened me a little, and I lost the image immediately, but I tried again. It was amazing. I could see these silhouetted shapes hovering in front of me. Well, it wasn't quite like seeing, because the shapes didn't have any color, which was the most remarkable thing of all. Sighted people see colors and light, so there's a contrast there. The way I see things is very different. But it worked, and I was completely ecstatic.

It was my eureka moment. My water pump. And no, I did not just compare myself to Helen Keller. Really, I didn't. It was just that we had to read her auto-biography our senior year of high school, for English lit, and that particular scene did kind of resonate with me. Everyone else in my class naturally assumed I would have some extra insight (no pun intended), which I didn't. The only thing in that book I could really relate to was the one thing I couldn't talk about. So, I guess I _will_ call it my water pump moment. The kind of moment when a light goes on in your head and you realize something that can't be unlearned. Of course, that wasn't the end of my journey. It was only the beginning.

I guess that pretty much answers the question of _how_ I see. As for _what_ I see? Well, in terms of plain awareness of things around me, I've got almost everyone beat. When it comes to actually _seeing_ things, it's a little more complicated. For one, I don't actually "see" anything when I don't have to. I'm constantly tuned into things around me, true, but that little trick I do when I bring forth the shapes of things actually requires some focus. Usually, I can do it with very little effort. When there's too much stuff going on, I have to work a little harder for it. But under ideal circumstances? I can tell how many fingers someone is holding up from across a room. Not exactly spectacular, but pretty good for a blind guy. I can tell where people begin and end, and their overall shape, but I can't really make out faces. I can pick up the shapes of individual people about a block away, cars a block and a half. Buildings… a little over two blocks. After that? Well, beyond that it thins out and becomes this void. I can hear it and smell it, of course, but nothing more. A lot of nothing. But don't feel bad for me, that's the one thing I could never stand…

ooooo

That evening, I told Foggy all about Stick, and what he taught me, and about my life, about dad… everything. We both finished our beers, then opened up two more. He didn't say much while I talked, he just listened. That was nice, until I was done telling my story and the quiet started to get to me. I can read people really well, but there's something disconcerting about being around someone who doesn't talk. "Say something."

"I don't know what to say. That's quite a story."

"Yeah, I guess it is. My life has been a little weird…"

"No kidding." I could feel him looking at me, studying me. Then he smiled, I was sure of it.

"Do you forgive me?" I was almost afraid to ask.

"Yeah, I forgive you." He briefly put his hand on my shoulder as he passed by to go get the bowl of potato chips he had left on the counter an hour earlier. "You want to watch a movie?"

"Sure, but you have to go down to the store and rent something. All Karen's got lying around is Fried Green Tomatoes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess." Karen had yet to move back in with me after my recent return from the dead, but she had already started leaving her things around the apartment.

"Or we could just talk if you want?"

"Talking is good. Speaking of which… What's the deal with your mother? And by mother, I mean Rosalyn Sharpe. Why didn't you ever tell me about her?"

"Oh, that… Well it's a long story, and a guy's got to have his secrets, right?"

"I've got time. Spill!"

And he did. He told me all about the mother who never cared, and about the one who did, and after a while everything felt okay again. We lost Karen not long after that. She and I got one last year together before she left, and then she was taken from me. But I didn't lose Foggy. For some inexplicable reason, he decided to stick around. Yeah, I don't deserve him, and I know it.


	5. Memory Lane

**Memory Lane**

"So I take it we're the only ones wearing suits?" Foggy and I had just entered the small mom and pop style diner where we'd had our first meal together fifteen years ago. It wasn't exactly the business district and even if it had been, this wasn't the kind of place were the suits normally had lunch. As we entered, nearly all of the other customers went quiet, and stopped what they were doing.

"Yeah, you got that right." Foggy was looking around the room for a table and I could sense his head jerk back slightly as he gave a nod to the woman coming towards us. "You think this is okay?"

"What do you mean? We can't pass up a trip down memory lane, right? This is fine." I would have even gone as far as to say that I was a little excited about the prospect of revisiting the only spot on this street that bore any resemblance to the place I'd once called home.

"Two for lunch?" From the sound of her voice, she couldn't have been more than twenty or twenty-five, at the most, so the waitress was definitely a new addition to the cast. However, except for the traces of a new layer of paint on the walls, the rest of the place appeared to be almost exactly as I remembered it.

"Yes, just us." Foggy's heart rate went up just a little as the waitress turned in his direction. She was probably pretty.

"Do you have something away from the window?" I already knew there was an empty booth in the back and it was always nice to get as far away from the outside traffic as possible.

"Not a problem. Right this way." She picked up a couple of menus from the cash register and headed down the aisle in the center of the room with us right behind. I grabbed Foggy's arm, mostly to put everyone's mind at ease. I swear, sometimes I think people are more spooked by seeing a tall guy wield a white cane in tight spaces than spotting someone in a devil costume aiming a billy club in their direction.

Comfortably seated in the booth in the back corner, I ran my hand across the menu. It hadn't changed either, protected inside a plastic cover with leather edges. Presumably easy to wipe off with a wet towel, but impossible for me to read. Although, from the smell of things, the items on it probably hadn't changed much.

Foggy picked his up and gave it a quick read-through. "Ooh, they still have that club sandwich… I might have to have one of those." He looked up at me briefly, just as the waitress swung by with two glasses of water. "You want me to read it?"

"Now where's the challenge in that?" I smiled at him, remembering vividly the very first time we set foot inside this joint on the first day we met. I had performed a little trick that I could have sworn made his jaw drop.

"God, do you remember that stunt you pulled?" Foggy obviously hadn't forgotten either. He put his menu back down on the table and shook his head a little. "Although I have to say that I'm a little less impressed with it these days. Now that I know you can cheat."

"What do you mean cheat? I didn't cheat." I did my best to pull off an I-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about, and found myself failing miserably.

"Okay, fine. Let's just say I had no idea you were a human bloodhound at the time." He said that last sentence in a half-whisper. "Just a little something you neglected to tell me for about ten years."

"Well, it still isn't really cheating, you know. You think I learned how to do that overnight?" I gave him a crooked smile, and pulled in a whiff of air, trying to figure out what might taste good.

"Well, I guess not." He let out a chuckle. "One thing that hasn't changed is that you're still a show-off."

"And you totally love me for it."

"Hey, don't push it. I'll go as far as to say it's a little intriguing."

"What can I say? I'm a freak."

"Okay, let's do it again. This guy on your right, what's he having?"

"Nice try, Foggy, but that's a woman."

"How exactly do you know that?" He had a point. The person at the table next to ours was definitely larger than the average woman, had either short hair or long hair pulled back – it was hard to tell which – and wasn't wearing perfume.

"You mean aside from the fact that she's been tapping her heel against the floor since we got here and applied fresh nail polish in the last two hours?"

"Show-off… Besides, how do you know she's not, you know, a transvestite?"

"I admit, that could throw me off if I'm not paying attention, except that women just smell different from men. I don't know why, maybe it's hormones or something."

"Hormones, huh?"

"It could be. I don't know how the whole body chemistry thing works, it just does. There are tens of thousands of different scents, Foggy, maybe more. I don't exactly know what all of them are."

Before we got any further, the waitress showed up again, already scribbling something on a pad about a foot over my head. "So what can I get for you?" From the way she shifted her weight, I could tell she was facing Foggy.

"I'll have the club sandwich. Does that come with fries?"

"Sure does. Did you want something else?" I was pretty sure he wasn't going to go for the salad, no matter how many times he'd sworn to lay of the fries.

"No, that's fine. And a Pepsi, please."

"Okay…What's he having?" When I was twenty, that would have made my blood boil. And I wasn't particularly nice about it either. These days I tend to shrug it off. Mostly because there are plenty of other things to enrage me. I see the worst sides of humanity every day, in court and on the streets, and I just don't sweat the small stuff anymore. It's a minor injustice, all things considered.

"How should I know?" I could sense Foggy turning towards me, and I gave him a quick smile. This kind of thing had happened often enough over the years that he knew what to do. I decided to carry on with the game he and I were playing.

"Excuse me, miss. What's today's special?" I could hear her heart rate pick up, and feel her scent begin to change, almost imperceptibly. She was sweating just a little, increasingly aware of her faux pas.

"Uhm, I… Chicken pot pie?"

"Okay… You know, I think I'm just going to have exactly what the lady behind you is having. A bacon cheeseburger with blue cheese dressing, though that's an odd choice, perhaps… Oh what the heck, I'm feeling adventurous. Hold the fries and get me that same salad with the avocado, and top the whole thing off with some ice tea. Well, on the side, not on the food…"

"Yeah, I got it." She spoke in a half-whisper as she turned around to look at the woman behind her. I handed her the menu I hadn't looked at and she quickly hurried off.

"Did I miss something?" I leaned back and and centered my gaze on Foggy who was looking at the woman to his left, presumably sizing up the food in front of her.

"Nope, not a thing." He was about to say something more, but hesitated briefly. "How…? I mean, how do you know all of those things are on her plate and not somebody else's?"

"Well, from just sitting here and not moving, it's a little tricky. But we walked past her before and the scents changed according to certain pattern, and I was able to triangulate an exact location."

"_Triangulate?_ What's with the sci-fi jargon?"

"Is there another word for it? You know what I mean. It's kind of like tracing a scent, but a little more advanced. What, you don't do that?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Anyway, it's like I pick up on changes in scent in different places and sort of subconsciously figure out exactly where it's coming from. I don't know how else to explain it." I really didn't. I sort through millions of odors every day without giving it much thought. I use them for specific information or as landmarks, the same way a sighted person would use street signs or specific visual cues. "And that's why this street looks wrong to me."

"It _smells_ wrong?"

"Exactly." The reason Foggy and I were even in this neighborhood was because we had an appointment uptown and had decided to go back to our old street for lunch. I almost didn't recognize it, and I'd already told him as much. Nearly everything about it had changed. The house we lived in during college used to be wedged between a café and a flower shop. Both were gone, as was the dry cleaner at the end of the street, and the ethnic restaurants strewn all over the neighborhood had changed both hands and ethnicities. All, it seemed, except for this place. "I mean, I used to have every little stretch of sidewalk on this street memorized by the way it smelled. How else do you think I got around before I knew the place well enough?"

"Well, I try not to think too much about what you can do because it makes my head spin."

"Man, I was such a rookie back then..." I smiled thinking about the teenager I'd once been. Still a kid in most ways, I had no idea what lay ahead of me. Elektra, dad's murder, Daredevil, Karen… I'd really made a big mess of everything.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought I had everything figured out. But really, Hell's Kitchen was like kindergarten compared to this neighborhood, and I didn't even know it. I moved here, and realized that what I could do at the time just wasn't enough."

"Are you kidding me? You blew everyone away! Of course, we didn't know about the cheating…" For the most part, Foggy had stopped riding my ass about all the lying I had done over the years, but he did still pick on me every now and then.

I let out a chuckle. "Why do you keep calling it cheating? Okay, so I'm not exactly what I appear, but I'm telling you, I felt like a fish out of water in this place."

"I never knew… I wouldn't have guessed. Seriously, after a few days with you I could have sworn you were one of those people who got a total kick out of making everyone else feel completely inadequate. Sure, you were totally nice about it, but you know what I mean."

"Are you calling me a supercrip?"

"Oh, so _that's_ what it's called?" I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, except only I'm allowed to say it. Political correctness issues and all that, you understand."

"Uh huh. Well that's too bad, 'cause it kind of seems like a good fit for you."

"Let's just say that when I moved here I felt a lot more 'crip' than 'super' for the first couple of months. Whatever else I may have done was probably just to compensate for feeling like I just arrived on a spaceship."

"You could have talked to me about it, you know." Foggy paused and leaned away from the table to let the waitress put his plate down. While she did, I let the aromas from my own plate work their way into my brain. This was a no frills kind of place, but the quality of their offerings was pretty good. Then I heard the plate clatter against the table, which served to break the spell.

"No, I couldn't. If I could have, you would have been the one to talk to, believe me. It's just… I know this sounds really bizarre, but I think a lot of what I was going through at the time would have actually been easier to relate to without all of the 'super' stuff." I was trying my best to be careful with how I phrased things, so we could have a relatively open discussion without clueing anyone around us into what we were really talking about.

"You thought it would be better not to have that? You're right, that sounds insane."

"No… No! God, no, are you kidding me? That's not what I meant. All I'm saying is that I had a hard time making sense of _what_ I was, and it wasn't until I left Hell's Kitchen that I realized how much I'd been kidding myself."

"I'm still not sure I get it, Matt."

"Well, take the whole thing with how things smell. You know, I never had to push myself until I came here. I hardly ever left the Kitchen while I was growing up, and I knew that place like the back of my hand. I used scents more like… Well, more to locate things I already knew what they were. They were incidental, and they all evoked these images that I remembered from when I could see. When I moved here, it was the first time I'd spent any amount of time in a place I'd never seen before. I mean, I'd never had to read a street sign before in my life, and when I finally had to, I couldn't do it. It just really bugged me. Without even knowing it, I'd developed this weird psychological dependency on places and things that were familiar."

"And Morningside Heights wasn't Hell's Kitchen…" Foggy didn't seem to mind my doing most of the talking as he kept shoving fries into his mouth.

"I finally had to start paying some freaking attention to what I was doing. So I just started collecting all these scents… You know, breaking them down and analyzing them until I always knew exactly what I was dealing with. But in the beginning… I just couldn't stand not being in complete control. And, I had to stop people on the street to make sure I was at the right address when I was going somewhere I hadn't been before. It drove me nuts."

Foggy took a quick bite out of his sandwich and swallowed hard. "Wait a minute here… Don't you still do that?"

"Of course, but I was _eighteen_. I thought it was the most embarrassing thing in the world. But that was another thing I just finally had to accept. This thing, being blind… It's always going to be a pain in the ass sometimes. But I wised up. Occasionally having to ask about something doesn't bother me like that anymore."

"What do you mean you wised up?" Foggy was thrilled to have caught me saying something he could use against me. "I don't know how to tell you this, Matt. You're smart, no doubt, but I don't know if I'd call you wise. Let's just say you've made some questionable decisions over the years."

"You're mean, you know that? Here I am, opening up to you about how I was basically a mess the first half of my freshman year, and you go and turn it against me."

"Well, someone's going to have to keep you grounded." He put another couple of fries in his mouth. "So, this street," he nodded toward the window, "what did it use to smell like?"

"Okay, you really want to know? Well, you know our building? Right outside, to the right, was the coffee shop; really easy to find, of course. I'm sure you remember. They used to get new goods delivered on Tuesdays, so there was always a little more of it in the air around mid-week. Then to the left, to walk to campus, there was the flower shop. I always loved having that close, because it was always interesting. They would get new flowers depending on the season, special times a year, things like that. I still kind of get this kick out of new scents. Anyway, continuing on, there was the bakery on the corner, so that whole area smelled like fresh bread, obviously. Just before that was a garbage can near the curb, not quite as nice as the rest, but it wasn't too bad. Then came the first intersection, with a narrow cross-street. There used to be a pub there, so I could smell beer, deep-fried food, that kind of thing. I'm guessing it's an Indian restaurant now, but I'd have to double-check. Anyway, after that was a newspaper stand, I could smell the fresh ink from it when I was close enough, and they sold candy and various beverages too, as I recall. Then there was a Kinko's, except I didn't know that for the longest time. But I could smell that… You know the smell of a fresh copy from a copying machine?"

"Hmmf…" Foggy was down to his last few bites. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Well, there was a lot of that. Then came this stretch that was mostly residential, a lot of cooking going on, just general people smells. And cat urine, it's hard to forget about the cat urine…"

"I never saw any cats around there."

"No, it was a couple of indoor cats, and the smell was from the garbage can. You know, from the litter box. Then, at the far end was a dry cleaner, lots of chemicals. I didn't like that much, but it was distinctive. Distinctive is good. Finally at the far end, before you get to campus, there's a smell of grass, but very faint. After that, I'd just aim for the sound of the subway, and that was it."

"And now it's just different?"

"You know, I can't even put my finger on it. It's just not the same anymore. Well, everything except this place."

"You want to hear something funny?"

"What's that?"

"To me, this is the one place that changed the most."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. Sure, I noticed that they switched some of the stores around, but this used to be our hangout. They repainted the whole place."

"I noticed that. What does it look like now?"

"Well, the walls used to be a light yellow, and they had all these photographs of famous people from the 50's everywhere. Now it's a dark red with brown trims and they have really tacky cheap paintings of wine and cheese on the walls."

"That's funny, I had no idea."

"Add some velour, and scantily clad women, and it would be a brothel. Well, with burgers and fries."

"And how exactly would you know this, Foggy?" I was just joking, I knew Foggy would never set foot in anything nearly as seedy as the places I had to visit during one of my nightly rounds.

"I watch a lot of TV?" The waitress came back and put the bill on the table in front of Foggy for him to pay.

"Okay, now it's just annoying. What does she think I am? Your _date_? Unless this means you're paying."

"I'll charge the company card. So… I guess that means we're both paying, right?"

"Okay, sign that thing and let's get out of here." I stood back up and waited for him to finish putting the tip in cash on the table.

"Well, this was interesting. Back to the real world, I guess."

We left the diner and crossed the street at the nearest cross-walk, taking a detour past our old building. I scraped my cane against the granite steps, and they felt the same way they always had. The scents had changed, but the textures were the same. At least that was something. Just as we were about to turn around, a couple of students darted past us and headed up the street.

"Can you believe that used to be us?" Foggy had a positively nostalgic tone in his voice.

"No," I shook my head, "we were much cooler."

"Yeah, and you're delusional." He laughed and gave me a pat on the back. "Let's go." We walked the same stretch we'd covered thousands of times before, and after a while it felt like home again. Foggy had been the only constant thing in my life for the last fifteen years, and his scent would never change. Him, I'd recognize anywhere.


End file.
